The word locale in the Java platform refers to an instance of a class that identifies a particular combination of language and region. If a Java class varies its behavior according to locale, it is said to be locale-sensitive. provides some support for locales for databases and other components such as the tools and the installer.

It also provides a feature to support databases in many different languages, a feature which is independent of a particular territory.

When you create or upgrade a database, you can use the territory attribute to associate a non-default territory with the database. For information about how to use the territory attribute, see the .